Letter: Christians and the LGBT community

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It was such a treat to read the June 12 letter in which the Christian community is set straight by LGBT advocate Jan Hamilton (“Support the LGBT community,” Commentary, The Aspen Times).

Early on, Hamilton asks what churches in Aspen would Matthew Shepard have been welcome to attend, as if to suggest that Christian culture had so poisoned the well with respect to gays that Shepard’s “martyrdom” was all but inevitable.

I would ask, what church would have turned him away if he had come knocking? Indeed, churches often have outreach ministries that might have attempted to help him with his drug dependency. But of course, Hamilton is either naively or willfully ignorant of the high probability that Shepard’s horrible death had far more to do with meth and with money than with any anti-gay sentiment that may or may not have been harbored by his two assailants. (Google Stephen Jimenez, whose findings were granted a high degree of plausibility by ABC’s “20/20” and several newspapers.) Indeed, this psychotic crime was more like an episode of “Breaking Bad” than a “hate crime” made to order for the LGBT lobby.

Next Hamilton says, “What did Jesus say about same-gender families? Answer: Nothing!” — implying that many contemporary Christians are “out of synch” with Christ because they oppose what he did not condemn. But how can he be expected to have commented on something that simply did not exist in his time and place? Like the word “marriage,” the word “family” would not be applied to same-sex partnerships and living arrangements for another two thousand years.

Finally, Hamilton complains that “no church in Aspen invited the same-gender civil unions on January 18 during Gay/Lesbian Ski Week.” But a church isn’t a “civil” institution, is it? One doesn’t go there to record real estate transactions, set up an LLC or apply for a driver’s license.

And why would someone expect Christ’s church to endorse a facsimile of marriage that makes so little sense in the context of Christ’s teachings on the subject of marriage?

Given that there are gays and lesbians who also are Christians, I just don’t think we have to go this route.